This is covered in the Rules of the Road. If it's over 10 years old, it's a classic comic, in terms of our usage of the term here, and if it's younger than that, it's a modern comic. Of course, no-one's gonna jump down your throat if a discussion about older issues drifts into talking about what's happening in the latest issues of a series. But if you want to primarily talk about recent issues of said series, then that definitely belongs in the modern comics forum, regardless of how long the creative team have been on the book.

I don't consider too many comics past the late 80's as "classic", but that's just me.

It's what the community decided upon, so it's what we went with. Not a perfect definition by any stretch, but it's a functional one.


As to the original question, it's a matter of context. For example, thwhtguardian's most recent reviews in his Hellboy from the Beginning thread were published in 2015, but they are part of a larger body of works being explored that are mostly more than 10 years old. However, if he wanted to start a thread solely discussing a Hellboy character or arc published 9 years ago, that wouldn't belong in the classic comics section.

One of these days, we're going to have a thread that begins in the Modern Comics Section and is ultimately eligible to be moved into the classic comics section as the material being discussed ages in real time. Hasn't happened yet, but it's inevitable.


It isn't a perfect system, but it's what the community asked for, and so that's what we have in place.